The New New Nationalism

In a profile by Pankaj Mishra in the Times Magazine, the author Yu Hua discusses “Brothers,” the successful Chinese literary novel that will be released in English later this month. At the end of the piece, Yu observes that artistic freedom in China faces a new form of pressure that has nothing to do with state censorship:

I am really worried about the new nationalism. Anything slightly critical of China appears in foreign media, and the nationalists are swarming online, attacking it….The problem is that the younger generation hasn’t lived through poverty, collectivism; it is lacking in restraint, its references are very few, the experience is so limited…. These young nationalists have no sense of ambivalence, no idea of life’s ambiguities. But when times are hard, their attitude will change, become more mature, and because capitalism in this form cannot go on in China, it has to end, those hard times will come soon.

Since Yu gave that interview, last fall, the hard times that he envisioned have materialized in spectacular fashion. With China’s economic growth slowing to its lowest point in a generation, China’s self-image as a rising superpower is being battered. It feels particularly abrupt because it comes only a few months after the Olympics made the Chinese feel more respected and empowered than at any time in decades. When I wrote about China’s new nationalists, last summer, their critique of the U.S., and their defense of China, remained somewhat abstract. They argued that the U.S. was determined to limit China’s rise, but the perimeter of that encirclement was indicated largely by familiar points of conflict, such as Tibet and Taiwan. Since then, the economic crisis has given China a whole new reason to be sensitive — a new narrative of nationalism, in which China’s once profitable trade with the U.S. has begun to feel like a strategic vulnerability.

It does not help that the first publicized words on China from the incoming U.S. Treasury Secretary, Timothy Geithner, accuse China of manipulating its currency. In that atmosphere, the appeal of nationalism begins to reach far beyond young activists. (Predictably, Su Ning, a senior official at the People’s Bank of China, called Geithner’s remarks “out of keeping with the facts,”and said they could become an obstacle in managing the economic crisis.) China shows no sign of changing course under pressure, which leaves Beijing University’s Michael Pettis, a reliable voice on how developing countries respond to economic crisis, especially concerned. “I am afraid that there is no way for this process to end. It will descend into trade war.” Whether or not it goes that far, we should brace for a new wave of economic nationalism in China. If unemployment continues to rise and enough new college graduates are left to idle in the street — or, more volatile perhaps, online — expect to see Chinese authorities do what they can to steer resentment in the direction of a target as far from home as possible.

Evan Osnos joined The New Yorker as a staff writer in 2008, and covers politics and foreign affairs.